T20 Traveller - The Kursis Charter (complete Aug 8th 2005)

[Morte]

Act II: Liar's Oath - Heroes

Date: 144-993 Imperial.
Location: Liar’s Oath system (1021), aboard the free trader “Avarice Rewarded”.

Silea had the nose up and the thrusters firing thirty seconds after Fish came back aboard. The Malfeasant sank below them.

The Ursa was breathing but in a state similar to coma. Luan rigged oxygen and a drip. The two human women taken off the bridge were indeed dead, and probably beyond revival even if Avarice Rewarded had carried the appropriate gear. Sir David got them out of their suits and into the two unoccupied low berths for preservation.

“We’re heroes”, said Silea with a glum voice once the Avaricious were gathered on the bridge. She waived vaguely at the comms station, adding “Every ship in the system keeps telling us so”.

“How’s the Ursa then?” asked Fish.

“If he was human or Vargyr, I’d say he was in an unrecoverable coma” said Luan. “But my medical database says that Ursa go into a hibernation-like condition under extreme systemic shock, and they can come out of it in time. So who knows…”

There was a long, long silence as everybody chewed on private thoughts. Finally Sir David broke it. “Well, hopefully somebody dirtside can study a database and treat him. Speaking of which, do you want me to agree your approach plots Silea?”

They went back to work. Soon the Avarice Rewarded flew over star town. From the air they could see that Liar’s Oath used sealed arcologies to keep the tainted atmosphere out. There were no domed cities, at least not on their flight path. Walkway tubes and electric trains criss-crossed between the buildings and sealed grav vehicles zipped about them. “Well they can afford to import air/rafts,” said Sir David, “so hopefully there’s a market for video games.”

 

[Morte]

Act II: Liar's Oath - Taking Care of Business

Date: 144-993 to 146-993 Imperial.
Location: Liar’s Oath system (1021), aboard the free trader “Avarice Rewarded”.

They landed, the third ship in port, and took care of business: waking the students from cold sleep, unloading baggage for the passengers and cargo for its owners, customs, and a brief meeting about the Malfeasant with a starport security officer (who was also an army captain and wore service uniform). They told him the story and he said the authorities would look into it, with a view to informing the owners and relatives of the deceased. Malfeasant was not a local vessel, and there was no evidence of a crime.

The Ursa went to a local hospital, still in his “not exactly a coma”.

The local bureaucrats were alarmingly efficient at the things they did do. The Avaricious barely had time to display ID and authorisation from Kursis Mail LIC before a shipping crate with three tons of hardcopy starport records came aboard. An engineer (who was also an army corporal and wore service uniform) had had a look at their recently stressed airlock and pronounced it healthy. They could leave within hours of arrival.

“Sod that,” said the Fish, “I’m going for a drink”.

…

Liar’s Oath was dull. Everything was clean and tidy. Half the functionaries were in army uniform. Swimming was considered entertainment rather than exercise (Silea partook, and wowed the locals). It was all so mundane that the video games fetched a healthy profit.

The place even looked miserable, with its dim blue sky lit by a weak red star. Not that anyone wanted to see the sky – the mainworld orbited the gas giant they had so recently departed, and its slightly poisonous atmosphere held the same chemicals in smaller doses. When Fish entered a mall and saw a sign offering “twelve hour shopping and sparkling entertainment”, he changed his mind about hanging around. “Where next?” he asked.

…

“Sentry” said Sir David. “Aleif’s a red zone, so the contract excludes it for pickup. Everything else is more than one jump so we have to stage. I don’t want to stage at Aleif space station, there’ll be no cargo and the navy might shoot us. Which is the only excitement Fish will find there…”

“I’ll talk to the brokers,” said Luan, “but I don’t know if there’ll be much to buy here. We might end up sticking to fee-paying cargo and passengers for this leg.”

They set to work.

 

[Broccli_Head]

Alright! Further exploits from the crew of the Avarice Rewarded!

 

[Morte]

I wonder what they were trying to salvage down there? (shudders) It's even creepier than going swimming after watching Jaws.

All will be revealed. Well, some of it will be revealed, and it depends what the Avaricious do after that.

Thanks for the kinds words, all. Traveller story hours are hard work -- they've only needed about 10 dice rolls up to the point you've read, so the game flows at an alarming rate. I'm slipping behind...

 

[Padril]

When he entered the drive room, all the fuss with the grapples paid off as his helmet floods cut a white pattern in Honora’s solid yellow atmosphere. The room was open to space, the back wall and half the floor missing. The drive was gone, and the room was wrecked by heat and blast damage.

Fish had been looking for an engineer since he came aboard. The three on the bridge just didn’t look the part. Now he knew why he hadn’t found one.

I can picture the look of horror on his face as he stared out at the planet. Keep it up I'm hooked already.

*spies his former NWN co-DM coming over the horizon*

Ah yes I've been meaning to talk to you about this, I'll send you an email soon.

Padril

 

[Broccli_Head]

Traveller story hours are hard work -- they've only needed about 10 dice rolls up to the point you've read, so the game flows at an alarming rate. I'm slipping behind...

So true...so much is going on. I guess that's why I opted for the log format. I can relate the tale as the crew sees things, not in an omniscient way.

 

[Morte]

Act II: Liar's Oath - Bear Necessities

Date: 149-993 Imperial.
Location: jump space, aboard the free trader “Avarice Rewarded”.

Two days into jump, Silea had given up on teaching Luan to use one of the hostile environment suits they’d taken off the Malfeasant’s crew. 40kg was just too much for her, she was better off with the emergency soft suits. Sir David adopted the other environment suit for the time being, finding it pretty heavy going himself. He extended the shopping list he was building between cooking and cleaning for six passengers.

Fish missed the video games. With not much else to do, he eventually got around to looking at the portacomp he’d taken from the captain’s cabin on Malfeasant. It had sat in his suit in the drive room ever since. He hadn’t bothered mentioning it. It turned out that it was some sort of video diary rather than a personal organiser. Fish looked through it a couple of times then showed it to the rest of the crew.

It was entirely recorded in the Ursa’s tongue, which was beyond any of them. But some things were obvious. He and his crew had modified and equipped their ship specifically for a salvage operation deep in the atmosphere of a gas giant, and a particularly corrosive atmosphere at that. There were a few hints that Honora was some sort of trial run, not the main target. The final entry showed the captain stood outside the ship’s drive room, not in his environment suit, but talking rapidly and subconsciously gesturing at the engineering section behind him. He was already moving forwards, towards his cabin or the bridge, as he clicked the diary off – the first time in forty minutes of video that he hadn’t held still as he cut the recording.

The diary ended. Luan, who didn’t normally have much to say about spacefaring matters, spoke first. “So they had some problem with their drives… and they couldn’t fly out normally… and they went for that blast upward in the hope that somebody would rescue them at the top of their arc?” The others nodded. “But it didn’t quite work out.”

“I wonder what they were out to salvage,” said Fish after a pause, “it must've been pretty special for a job like that…”

“I’ll see if the computer can translate” said Sir David. But the Ursa language of grunts, whistles, whines and facial twitches was too much for their software. “Anyone met any other Ursa lately?” he joked.

Silea, as usual, had done her homework. “There are about ten thousand on Miip. It’s an Imperial Ursa World. Some of them must speak Galanglic.”

Sir David picked the portacomp up and smiled at it quizzically. “Looks like that’s where we make the next collection for Kursis, then.”

 

[Broccli_Head]

Date: 149-993 Imperial.
Location: jump space, aboard the free trader “Avarice Rewarded”.

Silea, as usual, had done her homework. “There are about ten thousand on Miip. It’s an Imperial Ursa World. Some of them must speak Galanglic.”

Sir David picked the portacomp up and smiled at it quizzically. “Looks like that’s where we make the next collection for Kursis, then.”

Nice detective work on the part of Silea!

 

[Morte]

Act II: Liar's Oath - Filthy Lucre

Date: 154-993 Imperial.
Location: jump space, aboard the free trader “Avarice Rewarded”.

With one day of jump remaining, Sir David looked at costs and revenues in his cabin.

First, the costs:

The loans he’d acquired with Avarice Rewarded and extended to operate it added up to Cr 48000000. At 1% per annum, that cost Cr 40000 per month to service.

Avarice Rewarded normally consumed about 42 tons of refined fuel on a 2 parsec hop at Cr 500/ton, i.e. Cr 21000. Kursis Mail LIC would pay that for the next few jumps.

A skilled pilot like Silea drew Cr 6000/month, Fish the engineer made Cr 4000, Luan was earning Cr 3000 as a medic/broker and he paid himself Cr 3000 as an astrogator/steward.

Warm bodies – crew and middle passengers – cost about Cr 750 per week-long jump in food and life support. Low passengers in cold sleep cost a mere Cr 50 but the ship had to employ a suitably qualified medic to carry them.

Other costs like starport fees were relatively minor. In total the ship cost about Cr 59000/month on crew plus finance charges; and there would normally be Cr 21000/jump to pay for fuel. Plus one-off maintenance, which could cost half a million if things went wrong…


Then there was revenue:

Passengers paid Cr 8000 per jump for middle passage or Cr 1000 for low passage. Profits would be Cr 7250 and Cr 950 respectively per jump. Cargo haulage paid Cr 1000/ton, if there was cargo to be hauled. Speculative cargo was speculative.

They’d sold nine high and six low passages on their two jumps to date, clearing Cr 70950. They’d also hauled 17 tons of cargo to Liar’s Oath and their full 62 tons (after records) on the current hop to Sentry, making Cr 79000. There’d be little in the way of cargo or passengers to or from the class E port at Miip.

Luan’s video games had made a Cr 40000 profit. She hadn’t found anything worth a gamble at Liar’s Oath.


Putting it all together he reckoned that over their first six weeks and four jumps they’d earn about Cr 190000. Costs would be Cr 88500, to which they would normally add Cr 84000 for fuel.

In the long run, that wouldn’t pay for maintenance and lay ups. In the long run, they could avoid places like Miip. Sticking to class B starports or larger would fill the ship most of the time, and the right route(s) would aid speculative trade. He could cover the interest, and the body of the loan might be paid by the time the youngest crewmember retired.

It was no wonder that small traders took themselves off to the fringes of the imperium, where the risks and fees were higher. No wonder they went on salvage missions in the depths of gas giants…

He’d buy a proper vacc suit for Luan at Sentry, but the environment suit would do him for now.

[Background: A2 Far Traders cost about 67 million new. Avarice rewarded is worth more like 60 million, with a 48 million loan. Yes, any sane person would sell the ship and enjoy their 1% a year on 12 million. But…]

 

[Broccli_Head]

Oh the joys of Speculative Trading!